Bomberman Keshi – Super Bomberman 4

Hi, and welcome back to our ongoing catalogue of Bomberman keshi. If you haven’t already, please start at the first post, then check out the list of articles we have on the subject. I’m steadily trying to cover them all, but it’s going to take a while!

Today, I’m focusing on the Super Bomberman 4 keshi line. This set took me a long time to complete, namely due to some of the smaller figures – people lose a little angler fish and they have no idea it belongs to the Bomberman franchise! And, because 8/10 of these figures come in two pieces, it just makes it that much harder to find them all nowadays! Big thanks to Ragey and my other anonymous friend for helping me gather almost all of these.

Now this set is pretty interesting in that it consists of five full-sized figures and five half-scale models that end up being about as tall or wide as a full-size figure. The big figures are the 4 Bomber Shitennou and Great Bomber, the bad guys of Super Bomberman 4, while the half-scale figures are mostly derived from the manual’s artwork depicting the game’s plethora of brand-new features. There also existed factory-painted variants of the whole set, pictures of which may be seen in the Super Bomberman 4 Hudson Official Guidebook. I have some of these, so I’ll be showcasing those versions in lieu of the unpainted duplicates since you can see the details better.

One last little thing: I have a lot of these figures that still have their sprues attached, and the sprues are numbered. But the order doesn’t make sense for presentation here, so I’ll be showcasing them in a more logical order. The numbers will be provided where possible in the headers.

Super Bomberman 4 Series

Year: Circa 1996

Number of figures: 10

Figure size: Normal (up to 5cmx5cm)

Known colours: Blue, green, orange, red, white

Painted variants exist

Dogun Jr. & Black Bomber

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This is one of the toughest Bomberman keshi to find due to Dogun Jr. (the little pot-like enemy) being unidentifiable to any seller who is unfamiliar with the game. For this, as well as the later Angora figure, you’re more likely to turn up the Bomberman rider alone. With that being said, Dogun Jr. is one of the more unique non-Bomberman characters to receive a keshi, and it is a delight to have. The details are etched into its body and they look great up close, though they can be harder to make out from afar. One of the eyes bumps out a bit, I believe as a clever location for the injection on the mold.

The two separate pieces.

The Bomberman has a flat bottom and legs, and so he sits fairly well atop his mount, though even a slight bump may send him toppling. He’s pretty well similar to the title screen art except that he’s giving double V-signs here. Also of note is that the painted version is Black Bomber, while the title screen shows White Bomber atop Dogun Jr. Both characters have been swapped in the painted variants.

Another angle of the mount, and a poor fellow with none to carry him.

Bomber Throw (#2)

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This one shows Red Bomber holding up Green Bomber. The pose is similar to the manual’s artwork, but the character on the bottom has been bent over and adjusted a bit to hold his friend steady. It actually works very well. Since the arms and legs interlock, the figures don’t come apart easily by accident, and thanks to the pedestal, the composition as a whole stays upright quite decently.

The rider’s pose has been flipped and his expression set to a more serious one than that of the manual.

Judging by the rough feet, the one on the left appears to have had his base deliberately cut off. Children are mad!

Here you can see a bunch of them that I currently possess. Something odd to note is the appearance of white figures. These look to be glow-in-the-dark, though I’ve never found them to glow and haven’t thoroughly tested the theory. What is stranger still is that, as seen by the lower figure, these white keshi do not include bases. We’ll see more of them on the next page…